A 25-year-old man is recovering in hospital after being shot inside his vehicle following an apparent traffic collision on East Fordham Road in Fordham Manor earlier this week police said.

 

According to the NYPD, the shooting was reported at 7:45 p.m. on Tuesday, July 2, outside 1 East Fordham Road at Jerome Avenue. A police spokesperson later told Norwood News, “The report states that a 25-year-old man was traveling eastbound in a vehicle on West Fordham Road when a male suspect on a moped slapped the side of the vehicle.”

The spokesperson continued, “The victim stated to police that he made a U-turn and parked. At this time the moped pulled up next to the victim, displayed a firearm, and shot one (round) through the victim’s car door before fleeing the location.”

 

The spokesperson said that the victim drove himself to an area hospital for treatment, and added that details of the victim’s condition or where on the victim’s body he was shot were unknown. Police said they have made no arrests and no description of the assailant(s) was immediately available. The spokesperson concluded, “The investigation is ongoing.”

 

According to uncorroborated posts on the Citizens App based on police radio transmissions of the incident, the victim was shot in the abdomen and police were looking for four men who fled on two black scooters.

A man who answered the phone at Viral, a clothing shop at 3 East Fordham Road, said of the incident, “I have no clue what happened to be honest. I just heard there was a shooting; that was it. That’s all I heard to be honest.”

 

Asked if he was familiar with the cure violence group, Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence (B.R.A.G.), the man replied, “No, but I know they’re above us, but I don’t have an affiliation with them.” As reported, B.R.A.G. is run by the nonprofit Good Shepherd Services and the group’s Fordham office is located at the scene of the shooting.

 

B.R.A.G. has been active in the Northwest Bronx for some time and operates within the boundaries of the 46th, 47th and 52nd Police Precincts, working in the neighborhoods of Fordham, Bedford Park, University Heights, Kingsbridge, Mount Hope, Williamsbridge, Wakefield, and Edenwald. Norwood News has covered the group’s ongoing work at various stages over the years.

 

Asked if he had ever heard of B.R.A.G. organizing any events in the community, the man at Viral replied, “Oh yeah. Actually, I heard that they did something here like a little rally or something” [in response to the latest shooting].

 

We also spoke to an unidentified female manager at T-Mobile located at 7 East Fordham Road, and asked if she knew anything about the shooting. After conferring with an employee, she said, “Just a customer that heard a kind of popping sound and then that’s it.”

When told that it was at least one gunman on a scooter, the T-Mobile manager replied, “Oh Jesus!” With prior reports of road rage incidents, serious accidents, shootings, assaults, robberies, and a mentally unstable naked person once wandering in and around the vicinity of East Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, we asked the manager if she was surprised by the latest shooting. She replied, “No, not really.”

 

Asked if she had heard of B.R.A.G.’s cure violence work, the T-Mobile manager said, “We’ve heard of them.” Asked if she had heard about the B.R.A.G. rally held at the location in response to the shooting on Friday, July 5, she responded, “They did? We weren’t aware, no.”

As reported, B.R.A.G. Senior Vice President David Caba was recently honored for his work in the cure violence field by the publication, City & State on its Nonprofit Trailblazers list. When Norwood News spoke to Caba at the rally organized on July 5, he encouraged anyone, especially youth, who may feel intimidated by local gangs to reach out to B.R.A.G. for support. Details as follows:

 

https://www.facebook.com/BronxRisesAgainstGunviolence.

 

June marked Gun Violence Awareness Month. On June 3, the Office of the Bronx District Attorney held its Annual March to End Gun Violence. “We stood side by side with the families of those who were taken by gunfire,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said. “We are fighting to save a generation of people from being affected by gun violence.”

Later, on June 17, as reported, Prosecutors Against Gun Violence (PAGV), in partnership with the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA), held their annual conference for the first time in The Bronx, at Fordham University, in the jurisdiction and under the watchful eye of Clark, co-chair of PAGV, alongside City Attorney for Columbus, Ohio Zach Klein.

 

According to the NYPD’s latest crime statistics for June 2024 for the city as a whole, overall index (major) crime is down for the sixth month in a row. “Precision policing strategies and other proactive enforcement efforts paid dividends in recent weeks and months, as police officers assigned to shooting-prone areas took illegal firearms off the streets and arrested those carrying the weapons,” the NYPD said.

 

They continued, “NYPD officers seized 3,378 illegal guns through June 30 this year, 220 of which were untraceable, 3-D printed ‘ghost guns’ assembled from component parts lacking serial numbers. Those add to the nearly 17,000 guns – more than 1,050 of which were illegal ‘ghost guns’ – recovered by police since Jan. 1, 2022. In the month of June 2024, arrests for gun possession jumped by 7.6 percent (368 vs. 342) compared to the same month last year, while arrests for all major index crimes increased by 9.6 percent (5,029 vs. 4,589).”

 

They concluded in respect of shootings, “The number of shooting incidents citywide declined by 8.5 percent (441 vs. 482) year to date, and dropped by 0.4 percent in the second quarter compared to the same period last year. While there were five additional shooting incidents in the month of June compared to the same month last year (109 vs. 104), 41 fewer people have been shot year to date, a 7.3 percent reduction (524 vs. 565). Citywide year to date, 37 fewer people have been killed (171 vs. 208), a 17.8 percent decrease.”

They said major crime also fell another 2.7 percent in the second quarter of 2024, compared to the same quarter last year (31,162 vs. 32,029), and dropped another 2 percent year to date (60,211 vs. 61,409).

 

A further story on the B.R.A.G. rally held on July 5 in response to the latest shooting will follow.

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.